A couple of old prose by Charles Carr

A couple of old prose

Metabolic function, universal law,
type B follows A, she the latter,
he the former, the day is a wholesale
club, televisions with pictures the size
to replace windows altogether, samples
of flavors not meant to gather at the same
time, the produce section and they are
obvious, blemished as though finished,
ready to be replaced by the firm and not quite
purple feel of youth. She is comfortable
and vindicated personalizing a package
of blueberries, he contemplates what
it means, the flurries of people, the sounds
they make, no two the same, not snowflakes
necessarily, more like notes in a Dizzy
Gillespie horn of plenty. She jerks his
stupor with proud display of her completed
masterwork, a container well beyond
its capacity to hold which is approximately
when they scatter to the floor like children
rushing from the open doors of a bus,
like harder to handle pieces of a world
gets smaller and easier to fall off the face
of it all, the unraveled emergency in her voice,
his reaction, the practiced precision, the way
he captures and returns all but one berry
just out of reach in a corner where it spins
like a finger to the lips, like the unteetered
hush of a delicate balance.